Blue Horizon’s reading list is a curated collection of articles for SaaS founders and management teams. We are entrepreneurs and operators who have lived through the process of founding and scaling software companies. Here are the articles and resources we found useful this month.
Live or Die by Product-Market Fit
On OnlyCFO’s Software World
Product-market fit is not a startup problem, but something every single company needs to be thinking about. This is especially true during the current AI technology shift…Larger, well-funded companies may take a long time before realizing they have a PMF problem (because they lost it). And by the time they realize it the competition is eating their lunch. When PMF is missing or lost then the financials (unit economics) start to worsen. And if PMF isn’t addressed soon the financials will turn bad really fast as things spiral out of control.
2024 Benchmarking Metrics for Bootstrapped SaaS Companies
by SaaS Capital
◾The median growth rate for bootstrapped SaaS companies with $3M to $20M in ARR is 30% while those in the 90th percentile are growing by 75%.
◾The median Net Revenue Retention (NRR) for bootstrapped SaaS companies with $3M to $20M in ARR is 100% while those in the 90th percentile report NRR of 120%.
◾The median gross revenue retention for bootstrapped SaaS companies with $3M to $20M in ARR is 90% while those in the 90th percentile report gross retention of 98.1%.
From Founder-led Sales to a Sales Team
by David Cummings
Transitioning from founder-led sales to a hired sales team is often a difficult process. Failure rates are high with new sales hires, and many of the lessons have to be learned over and over again. Once product-market fit is achieved and the business is working, the next step is to hire a process-oriented sales assistant to take all the lessons learned, document them, and start mapping out the sales process.
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Blue Horizon acquires and invests in profitable software businesses with stable recurring revenue streams. The Blue Horizon platform combines long-term capital and industry expertise with an operating model that enables businesses and their leaders to focus on growth and profitability.